Africa
To which language should you translate to localize in Mali?
What we know from our community
Mali a french-speaking country located in West Africa. The country has a rich history inherited from great empires and kingdoms whose famous figures are: Soundiata Keita, Kankou Moussa, Tieba Traore, Babemba Traore etc…In Mali, there are 13 national languages which are: bamanankan, syenara, mamara, malinké, soninké, bozo, tamasheq, hasanya, songhaï, dogoso, kasonké, bomou and fulfudé. French is the official language of the country.
Each language in Mali has got several language variants. An example is the case of Tamasheq language with several variants: Tawellemet, Tadghaq and Taneslemt.
Far from being barriers, the national languages spoken the country are bridges that connect malian communities. As a result of the introduction of the bilingual curriculum, the national languages are taught in primary schools and even in higher education. Languages are equal i.e there is no minority nor dominant language. With a large number of speakers, its geographical extension and its use in public services, markets, musics, bamanankan is the lingua Franca in Mali. Mali is 95 % a muslim country. Its culture includes traditions passed down through the ages from generation to generation. In Mali, there are two twin cities, Timbuktu and Djenne which are UNESCO World Heritage sites since 1988.
Tamasheq
Mali tăqqăl ăddăwla ăssewălăn tăfrănsit tahăt Afreqiya tan ătarăm. Ăddăwla tila ăttarex hăs d oyyăn ɣǝrmăn d ǝzǧărăn barăḍăn wi ǝknanen ătwizzi ǝd mosli hullăn dăɣ ălɣalim šund Sunǧata Keyta, Kanku Musa, Ciyeba Trawore, Babemba Trawore ǝd meddăn ǝyăḍ.Dăɣ Mali, illanăt marawăt tăwalen ǝd karăḍăt ămosnen: Tabănbrăt, Siyenara, Mămara, Mălenke, Sonenke,tăbozot, Tamăšăq, Xăssaniya, Tehătit,Tăkadot, Kăsonke, Bomu ǝd Tăfulănt.Tăfrănsit inta s dăɣ ǝššǝreɣa tawălt tan ăddăwla tan Mali.
Hăk tawălt n Mali tila tǝnǝmmuzlăy ăǧǧotnen.Šund ălmităl tawălt tan Tamăšăq, tillăy Tawǝllǝmǝt, Tădɣăq ǝd Taneslemt.
Dăɣ as wăr ăqqel-năt mărsalăn, tawălen n Mali amosnăt tǝsseɣen ti osăɣnen tusaten ǧer măn năsnăt.Tawălen n Mali tawasăɣrinăt dăɣ lăkkolăn wi mădroyen hăkǝd dăɣ wi măqqornen ɣor uǧǝš n asărti n teɣăre dăɣ-snăt ǝd tăfrănsit. Tawălen ogdăh-năt ăwen ălmăɣna amos as wăr ti tilla tawălt toǧarăt wăla mădroyyăt fel ta yăḍăt. Tabănbarăt s inta s tawălt ta toǧarăt ǝmmǝsewilăn ,tǝǧit dăɣ ăkal tolăs ăssewalăn tăt eddinăt dăɣ dăggăn n ălxǝdmăt, hebutăn, isuhăɣ, inta a tăqqalăt dăɣ Mali tawălt ta s tanăfhăm-năt tusaten ǧer măn năsnăt s ǝǧit.
Mali tăqqăl ăkal n ănislăm s 95 dăɣ temeḍe. Tumăst net hăn tăt ăgnatăn ǝṭṭafăn eddinăt dăɣ ăzzamăn s ăzzamăn. Mali ,hanăt tăt sanătăt tǝɣărmaten,Timbuktu ǝd Ǧenne, s ităwănnu tǝknewen ăqqalnen terše n ălɣalim tan Inesko ɣur ăwatăy wan 1988.
Aguissa, English/Spanish translator
LANGUAGE INSIGHT
Official language
Bambara (46.3%; 10.7 mln)
Actual languages
French (55.2%; 12.8 mln), Bambara (46.3%; 10.7 mln), Fulfulde (9.4%; 2.18 mln), Dogon (7.2%; 1.67 mln), Soninke (6.4%; 1.49 mln), Maninkakan, (5.6%; 1.30 mln), Sonrhai/Djerma (5.6%; 1.30 mln), Tamasheq (3.5%; 815k), Senoufo (2.6%; 605k), Bobo (2.1%; 489k), other (0.7%; 163k).
What the top 150 best localized websites in the world do in Mali
(Top 150 websites listed in the Global by Design ranking – published annually by Byte Level Research, this report provides a list of globally localized websites, showcasing best practices and emerging trends in their globalization)
- 13/150 localize by translating into French
- 1/150 localizes by translating into both French and Arabic
- 1/150 localizes by translating into Bamabara
- 1/150 localizes by translating into Bambara, Soninke, Bomu, Fulfulde, Maninkakan and Dogon
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3M
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ABB
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Accenture
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Adidas
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Adobe
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Airbnb
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Aldi
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Amazon
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American Airlines
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American Express
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Apple
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Audi
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Autodesk
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Avis
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Bayer
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BMW
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Booking.com
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Bosch
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British Airways
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Bumble
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Burberry
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BYD
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Canon
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Capgemini
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Cartier
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Caterpillar
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Chevrolet
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Cisco Systems
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Citibank
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Coca-Cola
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Costco
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Dell
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Deloitte
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Delta
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DHL
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Disney+
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Dyson
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eBay
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Eli Lilly
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Emirates
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Ernst & Young
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Facebook
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FedEx
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Ford
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Four Seasons
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Fujifilm
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GE
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Gillette
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GoDaddy
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Google
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Gucci
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Haier
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Heineken
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Hermès
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Hertz
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Hilton
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Hisense
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Hitachi
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Honda
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Hotels.com
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HP
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HP Enterprise
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HSBC
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Huawei
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Hyatt
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Hyundai
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IBM
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IKEA
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Intel
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InterContinental Hotels
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J&J
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Jack Daniel's
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Jehovah’s Witnesses
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John Deere
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Kellogg's
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Kia
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KPMG
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LOréal
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Land Rover
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LEGO
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Lenovo
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Lexus
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LG
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Louis Vuitton
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Lululemon
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LUSH
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Marriott
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MasterCard
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McDonald's
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Mercedes-Benz
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Merck
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Microsoft
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Mitsubishi Electric
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Nestlé
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Netflix
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Nike
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Nikon
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Nintendo
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Nio
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Nissan
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NIVEA
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Oracle
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Pampers
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Panasonic
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PayPal
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Pepsi
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Pfizer
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Philips
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Pitney Bowes
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Porsche
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Procter & Gamble
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PWC
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Revolut
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Rolex
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Royal Caribbean
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Salesforce
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Samsung
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Sanofi
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SAP
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Sephora
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Shopify
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Siemens
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Sony
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Spotify
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Starbucks
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Steelcase
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Stripe
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Subaru
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Tesla
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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Tiffany
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Tinder
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Toshiba
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Toyota
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TripAdvisor
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Uber
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United Airlines
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UPS
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Visa
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Volkswagen
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Volvo Cars
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Vrbo
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Walmart
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Western Union
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Wikipedia
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Wise
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WordPress
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Workday
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Xerox
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Xiaomi (Mi)
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Zara
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Zoom
If you need others information, below you can find a selection of economic/social/cultural data
Overview
Language
Official language
Bamabara (46.3%)
National languages
Fulfulde (9.4%), Dogon (7.2%), Soninke (6.4%), Maninkakan, (5.6%), Sonrhai/Djerma (5.6%), Tamasheq (3.5%), Senoufo (2.6%), Bobo (2.1%), other (0.7%).
Other languages
French (55.2%)
T-index 0.012%
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.
Demography
Capitals: Bamako
Currency: West African CFA franc
Population: 23.29 million
Population density: 18/km2
Economy
GDP: 20.9 billion USD (2023)
GDP per capita: 897.4 USD (2023)
Exports: 7.56 billion USD (2022)
Statistics
Unemployment rate: 3.5% (2020)
Urbanisation: 46% (2023)
Literacy: 31% (2020)
Internet users: 33.1% penetration, 7.82 million
Conventions
Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator.
Date format: dd – mm – yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00223
Language data sources: Worldatlas/Britannica//EF/Wikipedia; Demography data sources: IMF/Worldometers; Conventions data source: Wikipedia; Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal; Statistics data sources: Datareportal/WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF/Culturalatlas/Commisceoglobal/Worlddata
Facts and data
Economy
Imports
$6.08 billion (2022). Refined Petroleum ($1.96B), Light Pure Woven Cotton ($215M), Broadcasting Equipment ($211M), Packaged Medicaments ($182M), and Gold ($171M), importing mostly from Cote d’Ivoire ($1.46B), Senegal ($1.13B), China ($581M), France ($367M), and Burkina Faso ($304M).
Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of age)
• 28.4% have an account with a financial institution
• 6% have a credit card
• 29.4% have a mobile money account
• 5.7% make online purchases
Ease of doing business
The ease of conducting business is medium (rated 52.9 out of 100). Ranked 23rd out of 48 Sub-Saharan African countries. Ranked 148th out of 190 countries worldwide (2023, World Bank)
Exports
$7.56 billion (2022). Gold ($7.26B), Raw Cotton ($105M), Other Oily Seeds ($39.7M), Rough Wood ($30.4M), and Iron Ore ($12.3M), exporting mostly to United Arab Emirates ($5.57B), Switzerland ($1.26B), Australia ($405M), China ($77.5M), and Turkey ($55.4M).
Economic freedom
‘‘Mostly not free’ (rated 52.5 out of 100). Ranked 24th out of 47 Sub-Saharan African countries. Ranked 127th out of 186 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).
Global Innovation Index
Ranked 25th out of 28 Sub-Sahara African countries, 129th out of 132 worldwide.
The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.
Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal
Service Imports (2014)
Service Exports (2014)
Source: OEC
Trade balance of goods from 2013 to 2023
Source: Statista
Historical Data Trade Imports
The following section uses historical trade data imports from partners of Mali.
Historical Data Trade Exports
The following section uses historical trade data exports from partners of Mali.
Source: OEC
The Top Export Opportunities for Mali by Relatedness
Relatedness measures the distance between a country's current exports and each product by showing only products that Mali is not specialized in.
Mali's Most Specialized Products
Specialization is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), an index that takes the ratio between Mali observed and expected exports in each product.
Source: OEC
Market Growth Imports (2014)
This score represents the likelihood that the given country will start importing that product in the next few years. It forecasts the opening of a new specific market.
Market Growth Exports (2014)
This score represents the likelihood that the given country will start exporting that product in the next few years. It forecasts the opening of a new specific market.
Source: OEC
Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP)
Source: WorldBank
T-index
Reach most of the online purchasing power
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales. It estimates the market share of each country in relation to global e-commerce.
Try it nowMedia
Media language most used language is English, followed by Afrikaans, but all the 11 official languages are represented.
Information channels
The media environment in Bamako and the rest of the south is relatively open, but the presence of armed militant groups in the north poses dangers for media workers, says Freedom House. Reporters Without Borders says there is a significant degree of media pluralism, but a lack of money means that outlets are susceptible to editorial influence from those who fund them. Radio is the leading medium. There are hundreds of stations, operated by private and community broadcasters and by the state-run Office de Radiodiffusion-Television du Mali (ORTM). The TV sector is much smaller. Almost all daily and weekly newspapers publish from Bamako. Circulation figures are low. L’Essor is the leading title. The BBC broadcasts in Bamako (88.9 FM) and Radio France Internationale (RFI) is widely available on FM. By mid-2019, 12.5 million Malians were online – around 63% of the population (InternetWorldStats.com). Social media use is concentrated in the cities and among young people. Facebook is the top platform, followed by Instagram. The authorities have sometimes restricted access to social media to obstruct attempts to mobilise protesters and blocked internet access in 2018 ahead of a presidential run-off vote.
The press
L’Essor – state-owned daily
Le Republican – private daily
L’Independent – private daily
Les Echos – private daily
Le Combat – private daily
MaliWeb – news portal
Malijet – news website
aBamako – news website
Maliactu – news website
Sahelien – regional website based in Bamako, launched in 2014 with backing from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) focuses on news in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali
Television
Office de la Radiodiffusion Television du Mali (ORTM) – public, operates ORTM TV and TM2, programmes in French and local languages
Africable TV – privately-owned pan-African TV, based in Bamako
Radio
Office de Radiodiffusion Television du Mali (ORTM) – public network of national and regional stations
Mikado FM – operated by UN’s MINUSMA mission
Radio Bamakan – community station, Bamako
Radio Liberte – private, Bamako
Radio Kledu – private, Bamako
Radio Kayira – private, Bamako
Radio Rurale – network of community stations
News agency
AMAP – Agence Malienne de Presse
Media data source: BBC
Internet Data
Internet users
33.1% penetration, 7.82 million
Share of web traffic by device
87.01% mobile phones, 12.54% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.44% tablet devices, others 0.01%.
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
21.55 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population
96.4%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G)
82.2%
Most popular web search engines
Google (96.87%), Bing (2.7%), DuckDuckGo (0.14%), Yahoo! (0.14%), Yandex (0.04%), other (0.1%).
Most used social media
Facebook (82.61%), Twitter (12.95%), Instagram (1.46%), Pinterest (1.4%), YouTube (1.28%), LinkedIn (0.21%), reddit (0.06%), other (0.03%).
Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter
Social statistics
Life expectancy
59 years (2022)
Corruption perceptions Index
Mali scored 28 out of 100, ranked 137th out of 180 countries worldwide.
Current health expenditure
4.47% of GDP
CO2 emissions
0.2 metric tons per capita
Current education expenditure
98% of total expenditure in public institutions
Gender
The social and professional salary-related mindset in Mali pose the same challenges that they do in Western societies. All questions related to women’s participation in society create serious local challenges for the majority of Malian women and religious authorities as some feminists attempt to classify professions in public or presidential politics.
The majority of Malian women do not understand what “gender equality” means. The more socially and spiritually active a family is, the more emphasis is put on the spirituality of a person, which entails respect of the particular faith’s values and practices. Therefore, in Mali, the question of “gender equality” must take into account these values, principles and religious laws.
Sex outside of marriage, cohabitation, adultery, sodomy and homosexuality are serious sins akin to heresy, heathenism, or, in showing support for any one of these, renouncing one’s faith.
Religion
Present-day Malian society has an underlying structure that grew out of the traditions of three religions: traditional sectarian movements (9%), Islam (90%) and Christianity (1%). In Mali, social activities are organized around the daily Muslim prayers that occur from dusk to dawn. Malians follow the rules of their religion (Islam) in the workplace by leaving the office to pray during Dohr ( from 1:30 to 2:00 pm) and Ashr (from 3:30 to 4:00).
Class
Malian society is influenced more by family or social cohesiveness than by social divisions such as class with the exception of the existing segregation of people of certain casts such as the Nyamakalaw (who are blacksmiths, jeliw otherwise incorrectly known as travelling Black musicians and poets, cobblers, weavers, etc)!
People of caste may jokingly or honestly approach a hòròn person (someone of noble birth) at work without being offensive.
World Happiness Index
Mali ranked 123rd out of 146 countries, with a score of 4.479.
Social statistics sources: WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF
The Data Factbook is a work in progress project. Our community is helping us to fill it up always with new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write your advices at imminent@translated.com
Country Curiosities
In 2023, Mali made the significant decision to remove French as one of its official languages, while maintaining Bambara as a central unifying language. Alongside Bambara, Mali recognizes 12 national languages, such as Soninke, Mamara Senoufo, Hassaniya Arabic, Maasina Fulfulde, Tieyaxo Bozo, and Bomu, spoken by various ethnic groups. Bambara, spoken by over 80% of the population, continues to serve as the country’s lingua franca, connecting people across regions and cultures. This move to exclude French reflects Mali’s desire to assert its linguistic and cultural independence, marking a shift away from colonial influences in governance and education.
Additionally…
- The name “Mali” comes from the Bambara word for hippopotamus, while its capital, Bamako, means “place of crocodiles.“
- In 2017, Mali had one of the youngest populations in the world, with 67% under 25 and a median age of 15.9.
- Mali’s economy is based on agriculture, with cotton and gold comprising 80% of its exports.
- Gold mined in southern Mali ranks third in Africa, after South Africa and Ghana.
- Mali is among the world’s poorest countries: it ranks 15th globally.
- Mali gained independence from France in 1960, making it a relatively young democracy.
- Mali is the eighth largest country in Africa and nearly twice the size of Texas.
- Mali is famous for its salt mines, where salt was once as valuable as gold.
- Most of Mali’s economy relies on areas irrigated by the Niger River, while 65% of the land is desert or semi-desert.
- Mali’s population is expected to double by 2035, and Bamako is one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities.
The geographical distribution of languages that you will find in the maps published in this section is a work in progress. Our community is helping us to fill it up with always new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write to imminent.factbook@translated.com
Photo credit: dutourdumonde, iStock